Saba Capital just sees "an opportunity to get it on the cheap.” Read my interview with Jonathan Simpson-Dent, the chairman of the embattled Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust, as it gears up for an existential shareholder vote next week. www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

Wall Street tycoon’s attack on City funds is ‘bad for Britain’

Boaz Weinstein risks hurting confidence in UK, chairman of Edinburgh-based trust warns

telegraph.co.uk

EXC: The UK's first prediction market might be launched as soon as this week. EasyBet is launching a similar product in February. Matchbook will launch its product at the end of January at the latest, and is also providing a white-label product for easyBet www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

US ‘prediction market’ gambling boom hits Britain

Sports betting group hopes to emulate Polymarket’s success in America

telegraph.co.uk

This is quite a big deal re Venezuela bonds. JP Morgan Emerging Market Bond Index has increased V bond weighting yesterday, by 30bps. That equates to a lot of forced buying (spread over months) that will likely see bonds head up to 60/70c.

As one hedge fund told me, trading in Venezuelan bonds after the country defaulted in 2017 was essentially a way to trade the Monroe Doctrine It's unsurprising then that some are contemplating investing further on the basis that Maduro's ouster is just the start www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

Hedge funds prepare to pile into Trump’s Venezuela

British investors are betting that US-style capitalism will boost the socialist country

telegraph.co.uk

Last week, the US military stormed a supertanker after it departed Venezuela's Puerto José terminal, carrying roughly 1.1 barrels of oil. Barely a week after the ship was captured, a tanker carrying British insurance departed from the exact same terminal. www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

NEW: FCA to allow crypto margin trading Initial guidance from the FCA banned margin trading for retail customers, but new rules set out yesterday will permit it - as long as losses don't exceed posted collateral. Usual rules re retail lending e.g. forbearance/credit checks also not required

Unfortunate timing: Yesterday: Dame Debbie Crosbie, Nationwide CEO, appointed government's new Women in Finance champion Today: Nationwide fined record £44m over financial crime controls, including failing to spot a customer receiving £27m in fraudulent Covid furlough payments!

Some personal news - after 3 years at The Times, I've joined The Telegraph as Financial Correspondent. So anyone with anything interesting to say about banks, hedge funds and the like - please do drop me a message!

Honoured to have won the European Parliament's Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism with @jamesdhurley.bsky.social and 13 other newsrooms across Europe. Our investigation looked at former owners of ships now in the Russian Shadow Fleet. www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/pres...

Russian shadow fleet investigation wins Daphne Caruana Galizia Journalism Prize | News | European Parliament

On Tuesday, Follow the Money won the 2025 Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism for exposing the hidden financial networks enabling Russia’s sanction-evading oil trade.

europarl.europa.eu

EXC: The Treasury opposed government plans to force a Chinese company to sell its stake in a UK chipmaker on national security grounds. With @georgegreenwood.bsky.social www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

Treasury opposed forced sale of China’s stake in UK chipmaker

Court filings reveal it was the only government department against the divestment of Future Technology Devices International, which had sold chips to Russia

thetimes.com

More than three-quarters of the FTSE 100 and a similar proportion of the FTSE 250 make their shares available to US investors by cross-trading them on OTC Markets, known primarily for owning the so-called "pink sheets" in the US. www.thetimes.com/article/b553...

Why UK-listed companies are flocking to the US ‘pink sheet’ exchange

In an attempt to receive more international exposure, more than three quarters of the FTSE 100 are now cross-trading on OTC Markets

thetimes.com

Honoured to have been shortlisted for the Daphne Caruana Prize for Journalism with @jamesdhurley.bsky.social and journalists at 13 other newsrooms for our collective investigation into the former owners of ships in the Russian Shadow Fleet. daphnejournalismprize.eu/edition-2025...

EXC: The US has collected $1.36 bn in tariffs from imports of British products between April and July this year, according to US gov estimates. That's ~ 6x the same period in 2024, and means British exports faced the 12th-highest level of duties of any country. www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

US collects $1.36bn in tariffs on British goods

The amount is six times more than the previous year and suggests UK manufacturers are being squeezed hard by the effects of President Trump’s duties

thetimes.com

Nothing - the London-headquartered smartphone company - has raised $200 million at a valuation of $1.3 billion. No small feat for a company operating in an industry dominated by a small number of major players. www.thetimes.com/article/584b...

UK smartphone company Nothing valued at $1.3bn after fundraising

The company’s co-founder Carl Pei plans to increase investment in artificial intelligence products

thetimes.com

While Trump has raised tariffs to levels not seen in a century, his administration appears to be struggling to enforce them - 🧵 www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

US tariff collection falls short as implementation issues bite

Revenue falls short of projections, with Oxford Economics reporting a significant gap between expected duties and those collected

thetimes.com

Interesting Calastone figs: * North America-focused equity funds saw net outflows of £330mn in July, the first outflow since October 2024. * Global equity funds (which are 60-70% US weighted) saw their second consecutive month of outflows, first time in Calastone's 10-year records.

In less than a month's time, the de minimis exemption will end for any business exporting to the US. I spoke to businesses in the UK about what it means for them: www.thetimes.com/article/b8bd...

Tariffs D-Day now just weeks away for Etsy export crew

President Trump is closing the loophole that allows small businesses to send shipments to the US without paying duty — and he is doing it sooner than expected

thetimes.com

European semiconductor businesses were among the few clear beneficiaries of yesterday's trade deal between the EU and US as much of their exports will be exempt from tariffs. On the other hand, EU spirit makers failed to secure an exemption, at least initially: www.thetimes.com/article/bde6...

Trump’s tariffs are still too high, EU businesses warn

Europe’s trade deal with the US has winners and losers, but as one leader put it, ‘When you’re expecting a hurricane, you’re grateful for a storm’

thetimes.com

Earlier this year, a cross-department raid on company formation agents led to 11.5K companies being struck off Companies House One agent registered ~5K firms at a single address in London. Most of which were based elsewhere in the UK, or not in the country at all www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

Thousands of firms struck off Companies House register in crackdown

Police and regulators using new powers to act against economic crime

thetimes.com

The FTSE 100 broke 9,000 words today, then closed below it - but I wrote 1,000 words about it anyway. Interesting point - since 2019, defence companies have risen from 7% to 11% of the FTSE 100. Over that same period, energy companies have fallen from 19% to 11%. www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

FTSE 100 breaks 9,000 milestone

Blue-chip index is outperforming global indices as a safe haven from global volatility

thetimes.com

EXC: At least 7 vessels exported Iranian oil or related products while holding British insurance from two British shipping insurers. www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

UK shipping insurers are caught in Iran oil sanctions grey zone

Conflicting US and British rules pose a headache for firms trying to keep up with regulations meant to curb Iran’s shadow fleet

thetimes.com

The number of entry-level jobs has fallen by nearly a third since ChatGPT was introduced in Nov 2022 More importantly, the share of vacancies which are entry level has shrunk over that same period to just 25%, suggesting AI is having a unique effect on grad jobs www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

Entry-level jobs plunge by a third since launch of ChatGPT

Retail, IT and accounting and finance are among the worst hit sectors since the AI tool began operating in November 2022

thetimes.com

UK plc have been disappearing from the world's largest trade fairs. Pre-pandemic, UK biz were the 2nd largest exhibitors at Drinktec with c 100 companies attending. This year, just 25 will go. The disappearance has become so noticeable that even the CEO of CES commented on it earlier this year.

Richard Caring has apologised after his restaurant empire sent a letter to suppliers demanding a 2.5 per cent "discount" on bills due to the "current increased cost of trading". Caring told The Times that the letter (attached) had been sent in error and was "totally incorrect".

Almost all artificial intelligence models are based on the principle of neural networks, a computational model inspired by the human brain. However, are there other, more efficient ways of building AI models? One start-up spun out of Newcastle University thinks so: www.thetimes.com/article/d34d...

Northern Gritstone leads funding for energy-efficient AI start-up

Literal Labs, spun out of Newcastle University, offers an alternative approach to machine learning

thetimes.com

Looks like the UK's tariff rate will be 10%, according to the poster Trump is holding up at his press conference. It looks like tariff rates are discounted by 50% though a global minimum of 10%

Among the products facing duties as a result of Trump's steel and aluminium tariffs - fancy ovens and farm equipment. Various estimates have put the amount of UK steel and aluminium product exports affected by the tariffs at ~ $3bn. Read more here: www.thetimes.com/article/e6c9...

Donald Trump’s steel tariffs hit UK exports with $3.4bn at risk

New US tariffs threaten $3.4 billion of UK exports to the US. One expert suggests this is a negotiating tactic, but will it work?

thetimes.com

Spelthorne council, which invested over £1 billion in properties including BP's main campus, is to be taken over by government-appointed commissioners. I wrote about bad property bets made by the council and three others in London's commuter belt last year. www.thetimes.com/article/resi...

Residents count the £4bn cost of councils’ bad property bets

‘Unsophisticated borrowers’ have left four local authorities in London’s commuter belt owing up to 1,500 per cent of their annual income

thetimes.com

For the first time ever, Rolls-Royce's market cap has surpassed that of BP. The vast majority of this is down to individual performance. Though Trump factor - combination of tariffs + European rearmmament likely pushing both over the edge.

CCEP is almost guaranteed to join the FTSE 100 at the next reshuffle. Combined with the other Coca-Cola bottler already in the index, Coca-Cola HBC, it will mean nearly 2% of the entire FTSE 100 market cap is dedicated to bottling or selling Coca-Cola products. www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

Coca-Cola bottler will add fizz to FTSE 100 in reshuffle

With a market cap of £31.5 billion, CCEP will be one of the biggest companies when it joins the index this week, as Hiscox drops out

thetimes.com